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The Dolphins haven’t won a game in a month, and all of the good will from a 3-0 start is crumbling. After yesterday’s loss to Buffalo, Miami is 3-3 with a tough road game against New England looming.

But Coach Joe Philbin said today that his job is not to get frustrated.

“(Dolphins owner Stephen) Mr. Ross doesn’t pay me to get frustrated,” Philbin said. “He pays me to get the most out of this football team and help this football team reach its potential. We know the NFL is a long season. We know inevitably there’s going to be ups and downs in the course of a NFL season. We’ve got to display now the strength and confidence in our players and staff that we’re going to get things fixed.”

Quarterback Ryan Tannehill was sacked two times down the stretch in Sunday’s loss, including a sack by Buffalo’s Mario Williams that led to Tannehill fumbling the ball. Tannehill has been sacked a league-high 26 times, but Phiblin said he’s not worried that it is affecting his quarterback mentally.

He also said he’s not concerned that it is physically hurting Tannehill despite the fact that Tannehill looked shaken up on the sideline and in the locker room after the game.
“Players get hit in football,” Philbin said. “It’s a physical game. It’s a contact sport. They all get nicked up at a certain point in time. Until he can’t play or practice, I think he’s going to be fine.”

Tannehill threw two first quarter interceptions and Philbin said “his decision making has to improve” but he said it’s not all on Tannehill and that protection is also an issue. Philbin said Tannehill’s last throw of the game, which was a Hail Mary that almost ended up as a touchdown, was one of his better throws of the game.

Phiblin wouldn’t say whether he would consider benching right tackle Tyson Clabo, who gave up the two sacks and has now given up eight on the season.

“He’s done some good things,” Philbin said. “Obviously he’s given up some sacks and he needs to do better. I think his effort has been very good, he’s a professional, he competed hard on every single snap. There are some fundamental and technique things we want to clean up.”

Philbin defended the play call that led to the fumble. Miami had a 1-point lead with about three minutes remaining and needed to kill the clock. But the Dolphins called a passing play. Phiblin pointed out that Buffalo quarterback Thad Lewis led an 86-yard scoring drive late in the previous game against Cincinnati so the Dolphins were hoping to pick up a first down with the pass instead of running the ball three times and punting.

“We hadn’t had a lot of run production,” Phibin said. “We attempted on first down to run and we didn’t get too far. My estimation was it wasn’t a very risky play. We had three times out left and the two minute drill. It’s a play we knew. Obviously we didn’t execute it as well as we needed to.”

Although running back Daniel Thomas got his first start of the season over Lamar Miller, Philbin said Miller remains the stater. He said Thomas starting “was a function of the type of plays we were running.”

Philbin tried to be optimistic about Sunday’s loss.

“There were positives and negatives as there are in any game,” Phiblin said. “There are a lot of things we need to improve on in regard to our performance. We’re going to continue to make the corrections today and move on to New England where we’ll have to play an excellent football game against a very good team on the road.”